What is Arena All About?

[bigtimer]

Ok, i also posted a thread yesterday about pvp, and the guys here have helped me alot.

One player mentioned that arenas offer WAY better gear? Now sense the arenas have been out, i have been at a lower level, and haven't payed much attention to it. But sense someone said there is good gear there, it has sparked my interesest.

Could someone please tell me how Arenas work? How you get obtain items, or honor? or badges? or whatever it is you get from them.

Treat me like a child here, haha because i have absalutely 0 understanding of Arenas. All i know about them is, i was curious one day, walked in the one in STV, and seen it...said...."coool", and walked back out.

Thanks Everyone

[Serrat]

the arenas are another instanced place to PVP, unlike the battlegrounds, you have to be part of an arena team(2 man 3 man 5 man)to get the points, you can simply pug it.

there are 2 arenas at the moment( a 3rd on the way) the nagrand arena and the bladesedge arena.

you join que with your team and then you will be taken into the starting area for the arena battle, like BG you are given 1 min or so to prepare, unlike the BGs however you cannot see who you are going to fight so cannot prepare for a particular class before hand.

you should also be pitted against similar level(you get a rating from winning or losing in the arenas)arena combatants, higher your rating the tougher its going to be as theres more points at risk if you lose, unlike battlegrounds were if you lose its like so what.

in regards to the arena gear, well you compare it to the blue pvp gear and it is a improvement but the starts are only slightly better in a peice v peice deal.

so for example(figures made up) on the enhanced shaman pvp helm it might have 20 strength while the arena will have 22 strength, not a massive increase, however added up over all the peices of the set adds up to a nice though not great improvement.


edit: in regards to gaining arena points, this is based of your rating that i mentioned above, from this rating your points are worked out on the wednesday of each week(like how the old BG system was) to be eligable for points you have to compete in mimimum of 10 ranked matches and have been in at least 30%( i think) of your teams matches for that week to be eligable for points.

so if your team players 10 but you only played in 2, no points for you.

though if they played 10 and you were in 3 of them then you will get the points that they also get.

Edit2: in regards to the STV arena, thats not part of the arenas system, thats a old area that at one time was planned to have a underground area for another BG(cant remember were i saw the info for this tho, may have been on my collecters edition dvd)

[Stigg]

And lastly....its a freakin bloodbath. You step in, and most likely...immediatly 2 people are dead. Then half a second later, half he people are dead. Then 5 seconds later the game is over.

It isn't for the "Hey guys, want to do some PVP? How about arena?" Its the "I am respeccing, re-gearing, setting up battle strategies, geting optimal class set-ups, and we might have a SLIGHT chance of winning"

And lastly - the Weapon rewards are incredibly amazing...and a much higher step up than the other PVP rewards.

[Serrat]

ya forgot about the weapons, they are much better than the pvp

[Inferna]

Arena is for high level competitive pvp action, don't go about entering unless you are really serious about pvp and have pvp'd extensively for some time as it will be a real eye opener if you haven't.

The 5v5 teams are were the most competitve action occurs since the potential for points if much higher in that setting. If you don't have a well balanced group with everyone spefically specced for pvp then I would hold off and do practice skirmishes for a while until you get the hang of it.

I went in with 5 people who were semi-serious and we got embarrased that first night. But after a few weeks we got the right classes going set up some targeting orders and got a main assist set up and the other night we went 10-1.

So basically you need to find people who enjoy pvping over pve and look forward to competition or the arena experience will not be as much fun.

[Fenris Ulf]

I transfered in from guild wars playing at a reasonable high level (rank top 300 GvG and dabbling in HoH (rank grinding, but less valued by GW company, as GvG is the signature format). Can anyone compare WoW arena to GW? BG's seem the equivalent of pugging Faction vs. Faction stuff, but worse, with HK obsession and goal shortsightedness.

I play on a PvP server, but find WoW PvP a little less interesting due to the same skills being used over and over again (boring metagame for me). That hunter is gonna ice trap you and then gonna aimed shot you, and you counter by doing x (or maybe y). It also has the quake aspect of it, jumping, spinning, types of kiting. Goofy looking stuff, rather than the organized ebb and flow of encounters in GW. Is arena the format I'm looking for?

[Stigg]

I transfered in from guild wars playing at a reasonable high level (rank top 300 GvG and dabbling in HoH (rank grinding, but less valued by GW company, as GvG is the signature format). Can anyone compare WoW arena to GW? BG's seem the equivalent of pugging Faction vs. Faction stuff, but worse, with HK obsession and goal shortsightedness.

I play on a PvP server, but find WoW PvP a little less interesting due to the same skills being used over and over again (boring metagame for me). That hunter is gonna ice trap you and then gonna aimed shot you, and you counter by doing x (or maybe y). It also has the quake aspect of it, jumping, spinning, types of kiting. Goofy looking stuff, rather than the organized ebb and flow of encounters in GW. Is arena the format I'm looking for?

I can honestly say....if you want to not be bored....go with Arena...the games last (honestly) about 45 seconds max...and all you will be seeing is your health (or your opponents health) drop so quickly you won't even have time to blink.

But...you REALLY need to be organized. My 5 man team played 2 "real" games of the arena and lost both...so we went to the skirmishes...where were decimated by 5 man teams, 4 man teams, and 3 man teams. And its not liek we were wearing crap gear either!

[Fenris Ulf]

I can honestly say....if you want to not be bored....go with Arena...the games last (honestly) about 45 seconds max...and all you will be seeing is your health (or your opponents health) drop so quickly you won't even have time to blink.

But...you REALLY need to be organized. My 5 man team played 2 "real" games of the arena and lost both...so we went to the skirmishes...where were decimated by 5 man teams, 4 man teams, and 3 man teams. And its not liek we were wearing crap gear either!

Thanks for an honest evaluation Stigg. If it's mostly like this, it sounds like a fundamentally flawed, half-baked PvP format.

The extent that equipment really matters is bothersome for me PvP-wise. How can you ever learn if you lose not because of lack of ability but equipment, or both. And then the twinked equipment in the lower brackets where you should be learning. Oh well, I changed to WoW for the PvE content anyway, I'll stick to that and keep PvP a random world kinda thing which was lacking in guild wars.